'Say it.'
'A gun in their bellies that's going off and splashing their guts around the room. That kind of attitude they respect.' I stuck my hat on my head, keeping it back off the blue lump between my eyes. 'See you around, Pat,' I said.
'Maybe, maybe not,' he said to my back.
I went downstairs into the rain and waited there until a cab came along.
Unless you knew they were there you'd never notice it. Just little things out of place here and there. A streak through the dust where a coat sleeve dragged, an ashtray not quite in place, the rubber seal around the refrigerator door hanging because they didn't know it was loose and had to be stuffed back by hand.
The .45 was still hanging in the closet, but this time there was a thumbprint on the side where I knew I had wiped it before I stuck it away. I picked the rig off the hook and laid it on the table. The Washington boys were pretty good at that sort of thing. I started to whistle a tuneless song as I climbed out of my jacket when I noticed the wastebasket beside the dresser. There was a cigarette butt in the bottom with the brand showing and it wasn't my brand. I picked it up, stared at it, threw it back and went on whistling. I stopped when the thought of it jelled, picked up the phone and dialed the super's number downstairs.
I said, 'This is Mike Hammer, John. Did you let some men in up here?'
He hedged with, 'Men? You know, Mr. Hammer, I...'
'It's okay, I had a talk with them. I just wanted to check on it.'
'Well, in that case... they had a warrant. You know what they were? They were F.B.I. men.'
'Yeah, I know.'
'They said I shouldn't mention it.'
'You're sure about it?'
'Sure as anything. They had a city cop along too.' 'What about anybody else?'
'Nobody else, Mr. Hammer. I wouldn't let a soul in up there, you know that.'
'Okay, John. Thanks.' I hung up the phone and looked around again.
Somebody else had gone through the apartment. They had done a good job too. But not quite as good as the feds. They had left their trademark around.
The smoke that was trouble started to boil up around me again. You couldn't see it and you couldn't smell it, but it was there. I started whistling again and picked up the .45.
Chapter Four
She came in at half-past eleven. She used the key I had given her a long time ago and walked into the living room, bringing with her the warmth and love for life that was like turning on the light.
I said, 'Hello, beautiful,' and I didn't have to say anything more because there was more in the words than the sound of my voice and she knew it.
She started to smile slowly and her mouth made a kiss. Our lips didn't have to touch. She flung that warmth across the room and I caught it. Velda said, 'Ugly face. You're uglier now than you were but I love you more than ever.'
'So I'm ugly. Underneath I'm beautiful.'
'Who can dig down that deep?' She grinned. Then added, 'Except me, maybe.
'Just you, honey,' I said.
The smile that played around her mouth softened a moment, then she slipped out of the coat and threw it across the back of a chair.
I could never get tired of looking at her, I thought. She was everything you needed just when. you needed it, a bundle of woman whose emotions could be hard or soft or terrifying, but whatever they were it was what you wanted. She was the lush beauty of the jungle, the sleek sophisticate of the city. Like I said, to me she was everything, and the dull light of the room was reflected in the ring on her finger that I had given her.
I watched her go to the kitchen and open a pair of beer cans. I watched while she sat down, took the frosted can from her and watched while she sipped the top off hers and felt a sudden stirring when her tongue flicked the foam from her lips.
Then she said what I knew she was going to say. 'This one's too big, Mike.'
'It is?'
Her eyes drew a line across the floor and up my body until they were staring hard into mine. 'I was busy while you were in the hospital, Mike. I didn't just let things wait until you got well. This isn't murder as you've known it before. It was planned, organizational killing and it's so big that even the city authorities are afraid of it. The thing has ballooned up to a point where it's federal and even then it's touching such high places that the feds have to move carefully.'
'So?' I let it hang there and pulled on the can of beer.
'It doesn't make any difference what I think?'
I set the can on the endtable and made the three-ring pattern on the label. 'What you think makes a lot of difference, kitten, but when it comes to making the decisions I'll make them on what I think. I'm a man. So I'm just one man, but as long as I have a brain of my own to use and experience and knowledge to draw on to form a decision I'll keep on making them myself.'
'And you're going after them?'
'Would you like me better if I didn't?'
The grin crept back through the seriousness on her face. 'No.' Then her eyes laughed at me too. 'Ten million dollars' worth of men and equipment bucking another multi-million outfit and you elect yourself to step in and clean up. But then, you're a man.' She sipped from the beer can again, then said, 'But what a man. I'll be glad when you step off that bachelorhood pedestal and move over to where I have a little control over you.'
'Think you ever will?'
'No, but at least I'll have something to bargain with.' She laughed. 'I'd like to have you around for a long time without worrying about you.'
'I feel the same way myself, Velda. It's just that some things come first.'
'I know, but let me warn you. From now on you're going to be up against a scheming woman.'
'That's been tried before.'
'Not like this.'
'Yeah,' I said, and finished the beer. I waited until she put hers down too, then shook out a Lucky and tossed the pack over to her. 'What did you pick up?'
'A few details. I found a trucker who passed your car where they had it parked with the flares fore and aft. The guy stopped, and when he saw nobody around he went on. The nearest phone was three miles down the road in a diner and he was surprised when nobody had shown up there because he hadn't seen anyone walking. The girl in the diner knew about an abandoned shack a few hundred yards from the spot and I went there. The place was alive with feds.'
'Great.'
'That's hardly the word for it.' She squirmed in the chair and ran her fingers through her hair, the deep ebony of it rubbed to a soft glow in the pale lamplight. 'They held me for a while, questioned me, and released me with a warning that had teeth in it.'
'They find anything?'
'From what I could see, nothing. They backtracked the same way that I did and anything they found just supported what you had already told them.
'There's a catch in it though,' she said. 'The shack was a good fifty yards in from the highway and covered with brush. You could light the place up and it wouldn't be seen, and unless you knew where to look you'd never find it.'
'It was too convenient to be coincidental, you mean?'
'Much too convenient.'
I spit out a stream of smoke and watched it flow around the empty beer can. 'That doesn't make sense. The kid was running away. How'd they know which direction she'd pick out?'
'They wouldn't, but how would they know where that shack was?'
